14 Ways to Make Online Citizen Participation Work: “Be Careful What You Promise!”

In preparation for our potential panel at SXSW 2010 and in an effort to give people a better understanding what our topic is all about, I’m putting together a mini series of posts around some of the recommendations we plan to share. This post is the first part of this series and addresses the importance of expectation management in public participation.

The idea behind the session proposal “14 Ways to Make Online Citizen Participation Work” is to share tips that aim to increase the likelihood of success of any online participation initiative regardless of the particular online tools or services that are being used.

One fairly obvious but nevertheless important thing to keep in mind is that participation cannot happen without participants. In order to attract and retain participants and keep them engaged throughout the project, it is probably a good idea to make sure they get to enjoy a good participation experience.

While creating a good participation experience depends on many factors (we’ll touch upon more of those in later posts), one sure way to ruin it for participants is to disappoint them. Disappointment occurs when expectations aren’t met. The fallout from failing to meet participants’ expectations can negatively impact the entire participation initiative and hence is to be avoided.

By inviting participation, the project organizer makes a promise to the participants that they will have some sort of impact on the decision making process. For a general overview, see IAP2’s Spectrum of Public Participation (PDF). They list the following “promises to the public” (one for each of their five public participation goals, here marked in bold):

• Inform: We will keep you informed.
• Consult: We will keep you informed, listen to and acknowledge concerns and aspirations, and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision.
• Involve: We will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision.
• Collaborate: We will look to you for advice and innovation in formulating solutions and incorporate your advice and recommendations into the decisions to the maximum extent possible.
• Empower: We will implement what you decide.

You can see right there that these commitments differ vastly in scope. In order to set the right expectations it is necessary to be very specific with regard to the impact participants will have as well as the roles both the conveners and the participants will each have to play.

For multi-phased projects, different phases can fall into different areas of the spectrum. Again, it is necessary that participants have a clear understanding of what they can expect during each phase.

To further adjust participants’ expectations, it is helpful to provide them with a good orientation of the overall process and how they fit into the bigger picture. This may include answering questions such as the following:

• What is the ultimate decision at stake?
• What is the overall timeline? (identify the various phases of the decision making process, where the process currently stands and when decisions are due or will likely be made)
• Who will make the decision? Who, if anyone, can block the decision?
• Who are the stakeholders?
• What is the scope of the participation initiative at hand? (incl. anything deemed off topic, any constraints or limitations, decisions that have already been made etc.)
• What other participation efforts have occurred or are still planned?
• What are the risks that the participation initiative will fail to have the intended impact and how are these risks being addressed?
• Etc.

There are several ways this information can be communicated:

• Create a project description or FAQ page (e.g. on an accompanying blog or wiki) that clarifies and makes explicit the project goals as well as any implied promises or commitments to the participants
• Ask participants to “sign off” on this description (e.g. upon registration for whichever tool is being used)
• Continue to mention project goals and “promises” via your regular communication channels (e.g. project blog, email newsletter etc.)
• Over the course of your participation initiative, put interim results in context and explain how they relate to your participation goals
• Engage directly with participants whenever they express misconceptions or appear to have unrealistic expectations

Keeping participants’ expectations in line with what you can deliver is key, both for online and face-to-face participation. For online participation, providing this information should not be difficult. It’s just something that needs to get done.

Related Posts

1. September 7, 2009 by Tim:
   14 Ways to Make Online Citizen Participation Work: “Keep Folks in the Loop!”
2. August 16, 2009 by Tim:
   Intellitics SXSW 2010 Session Proposal: “14 Ways to Make Online Citizen Participation Work”
3. June 8, 2009 by Tim:
   Open Government Dialogue: Agenda for Phase 2 Discussion about Citizen Participation